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Insights on Growth with Kat Kennedy
5 Plays3 years ago
We have exciting news! Kickstart is welcoming a new general partner. Someone who grew a small and scrappy startup to a successful company valued at over $1.4B. And now, she's taking the plunge into VC to magnify her impact from one amazing company to hundreds of amazing companies. You'll hear a lot from her as the show's newest investor expert. But today, it's all about her! Join us in our conversation with investor Kat Kennedy of Kickstart (a VC firm for startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West) for a special episode of Perfect Pitch. In this episode, we'll talk about:
Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable
How asking questions makes you appear more confident and competent
Kat's conversations with Mark Cuban & how he drove her excitement for venture capital
Why Kat decided to shift to venture capital, and why she chose Kickstart
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Kat Kennedy
00:00:00
Speaker
We have some exciting news for you today.
00:00:03
Speaker
Kickstart is welcoming a new general partner, someone who grew a small and scrappy startup to a successful company valued at over $1.4 billion.
00:00:12
Speaker
And now she's taking the plunge into VC to magnify her impact from one amazing company to hundreds of amazing companies.
00:00:20
Speaker
You'll get to hear a lot from her as the show's newest investor expert, but today it's all about her and our amazing lessons learned.
00:00:27
Speaker
Join us in our conversation with investor Kat Kennedy for a special episode of Perfect Pitch.
00:00:43
Speaker
Perfect Pitch is a podcast from Kickstart that reveals the minds of both investors and entrepreneurs throughout a startup's journey.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm your host, Karen Zelnick.
Kat Kennedy's Career Journey
00:00:54
Speaker
Kat, thank you so much for being here today.
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm thrilled to have you on.
00:00:58
Speaker
I'm thrilled about this announcement and I'm going to overuse the word thrilled, I'm sure throughout this podcast.
00:01:03
Speaker
So listeners get ready for it.
00:01:06
Speaker
I will match your thrilled with excited.
00:01:08
Speaker
So that will be the game at the end.
00:01:10
Speaker
Just count the thrilled, count the excited.
00:01:13
Speaker
And the person who gets the correct count first wins something.
00:01:15
Speaker
No, get some swag.
00:01:18
Speaker
Get some kickstart swag.
00:01:21
Speaker
But before we get into the conversation, I want to cover the highlights of your career, which will show our listeners just how amazing you are.
00:01:28
Speaker
You started your career as a developer before you transitioned to DeGreed as their first employee and CPO.
00:01:34
Speaker
And over the next 10 years, you rose to the ranks and you became the president and the CXO.
00:01:40
Speaker
And recently, you joined Kickstart as the newest general partner, which we're going to dig deep into soon on this conversation.
00:01:47
Speaker
And you enjoy hiking, Legos, wine, hanging out with your kids.
00:01:51
Speaker
Have you ever done all of those together at once?
00:01:54
Speaker
On multiple occasions, I've done three of the four.
00:01:57
Speaker
I've never done four out of the four.
00:01:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:00
Speaker
But please tell me it was hiking and Legos at the same time, because then we know for sure there's nothing in the world.
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm hardcore.
00:02:06
Speaker
That's how you know you're a hardcore Lego fan is if you're hiking and doing Lego.
00:02:11
Speaker
Never combined those two, but now I have a goal.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:14
Speaker
Now you're like my new life goal.
00:02:17
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you?
00:02:20
Speaker
I love Utah and the Mountain West.
00:02:23
Speaker
So born and raised here and have been lucky to be a part of this incredible community for my entire life.
Insights on Venture-Backed Companies
00:02:32
Speaker
And it's where I want to stay and continue to contribute.
00:02:36
Speaker
Utah and the Mountain West is an amazing region.
00:02:38
Speaker
There's so many exciting things going on startup wise.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so we're just lucky to have you in the region contributing and building up the ecosystem.
00:02:47
Speaker
And I want to get into your experience more.
00:02:49
Speaker
So as Degree's first employee turned president in CXO, you had a first row seat to watching a startup rise from seed to series D. And how did you adapt to such a rapidly changing environment?
00:03:02
Speaker
It is quite the journey being a part of any company that's venture backed.
00:03:07
Speaker
You are in for a treat because the name of the game is Grow.
00:03:13
Speaker
You have to get used to being uncomfortable.
00:03:16
Speaker
You have to get used to change and not ever feeling like you are quote unquote on stable ground.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so I just looked and watched and learned and evolved from day to day.
00:03:30
Speaker
And I was lucky to be surrounded by people who supported me in that and never questioned if I didn't know at the moment, but they always believed that with the
00:03:42
Speaker
time and space, I would learn and be able to get to that next phase.
00:03:47
Speaker
And I think too often, we think we have to have it all figured out.
00:03:52
Speaker
But the reality is no one does.
00:03:54
Speaker
And the very act of figuring it out is what separates the people who can adapt and grow with the company versus those that will transition out as you go from stage to stage.
00:04:05
Speaker
I just kind of think psychologically of anxiety and being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
00:04:11
Speaker
The only way out is through.
00:04:12
Speaker
There's never a point where you can logic your way through it or study enough to get through it.
00:04:16
Speaker
You have to just, like you said, experience it, keep going, have the space and the support to keep going.
00:04:22
Speaker
And I love that you brought that up again.
00:04:24
Speaker
We're so lucky to have you because you're going to bring that perspective into the ecosystem of look, we're going to give you the space.
00:04:29
Speaker
We're going to give you the support.
00:04:30
Speaker
It's
00:04:31
Speaker
really okay that you don't have it all figured out.
00:04:34
Speaker
If I could go back, give advice to my former self, what I would tell her is speak up.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's okay that you don't know right now.
00:04:43
Speaker
Say the things that you don't know.
00:04:45
Speaker
Ask for even the things that you don't know that you don't know.
00:04:48
Speaker
The beauty of bringing investors to the table is you have a group that are literally there to ask those questions to because they've seen it multiple times.
00:04:59
Speaker
They can give you good responses and you should feel safer in having those conversations than I would have assumed when I was early in my career.
00:05:08
Speaker
Having those conversations enables you to grow.
00:05:12
Speaker
And so never
Leadership and Team Dynamics
00:05:13
Speaker
hesitate from asking.
00:05:14
Speaker
It doesn't make you look incompetent.
00:05:16
Speaker
It actually does the opposite.
00:05:18
Speaker
People who are secure and can ask are most of the time, the most confident and confident as well.
00:05:25
Speaker
I love that you hit on that point.
00:05:27
Speaker
There's nothing incompetent about turning to that and wondering and be like, what don't I know?
00:05:32
Speaker
So yeah, I have an executive coach and he often advises me to sit with emotion and analyze the emotion, not to react to
00:05:43
Speaker
If we're feeling nervous, if we're feeling anxiety, there's something that is causing it.
00:05:49
Speaker
And so facing emotion with curiosity and taking the space to be curious and dig deeper and naming that for yourself often helps you sort through so much, even on your own.
00:06:03
Speaker
If you can name what's causing you the anxiety and be curious about it, then it's much easier to resolve it versus on that side.
00:06:11
Speaker
ever spinning rat wheel of trying to just fix anxiety, fix anxiety.
00:06:16
Speaker
Nah, you'll just get more anxious if you allow it to continue to spin.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, it really snowballs like crazy.
00:06:22
Speaker
My coach always says, name it to tame it.
00:06:24
Speaker
I have that on a little note, name it to tame it.
00:06:27
Speaker
And it's amazing what it can do.
00:06:29
Speaker
You know, for entrepreneurs listening, can you share insight on what it took to scale degree?
00:06:33
Speaker
You mentioned the support, you mentioned having the community around you in the space, but looking back specifically, what did your team do that was key for the company's success?
00:06:42
Speaker
What did you do internally together?
00:06:45
Speaker
To scale, you need sure foundations.
00:06:48
Speaker
And from the beginning, we were lucky to have a founder that is incredibly principled.
00:06:54
Speaker
He is principled in how he makes decisions.
00:06:57
Speaker
He is principled in how he leads.
00:06:59
Speaker
And he's also principled in how he communicates those things.
00:07:04
Speaker
I think we were six months in and he, no joke, on a plane coming home from a meeting with an investor on a napkin, wrote out the principles that guide how Degreed should operate and how Degreed should scale and how we should think about making decisions.
00:07:25
Speaker
And now it's an artifact of how we operated at Degreed.
00:07:30
Speaker
And how they continue to operate today.
00:07:32
Speaker
I'll say we all the time because they're part of my soul, even though I'm not there anymore.
00:07:37
Speaker
And those principles created a foundation by which we could grow.
00:07:43
Speaker
So as employees came into the organization, they knew out the gate, how we make decisions, how we thought about the future and their part in contributing to those decisions.
00:07:55
Speaker
So I would say, how to think about scaling is first, where are you today?
00:08:03
Speaker
And how can you shore up that foundation to give you a good starting point?
00:08:08
Speaker
And that starting point doesn't matter if you have an idea, if you are ready to IPO, you're still at the start of where you are today.
00:08:17
Speaker
And there's something that you can shore up in terms of your foundation and make it easier to grow on top of it.
00:08:23
Speaker
The other thing was foundations of who we were as a team.
00:08:27
Speaker
So Degreed started as a remote first organization.
00:08:31
Speaker
We had a founder in Alpine, a founder in San Francisco.
00:08:35
Speaker
I was in Farmington, Utah.
00:08:36
Speaker
So we were all pretty far away from each other.
00:08:40
Speaker
But we would intentionally get together and spend time.
00:08:44
Speaker
That looked different depending on how much money we had in the bank.
00:08:50
Speaker
Sometimes that was just, we all stayed, you know, had dinner at someone's house.
00:08:55
Speaker
But as the company grew, we would get everyone together.
00:09:00
Speaker
So in the summers, the team really formed because we would move to a location and take our families and all be...
00:09:08
Speaker
Sometimes crammed into one apartment together and forming these bonds of friendship and teamwork.
00:09:15
Speaker
But behind that, it was just trust.
00:09:17
Speaker
So we did some incredible things, sometimes outlandish things.
00:09:22
Speaker
But what we were doing was building trust and camaraderie amongst the team.
00:09:28
Speaker
That set a precedent for what we expected of the relationships, both across the leadership, but also with everyone we brought into the team.
Influential Investor Interactions
00:09:38
Speaker
We wanted every day to be in the basis of trust.
00:09:43
Speaker
Because if you trust each other, if you know that the person sitting next to you has your back, it makes it so much easier to survive the ebbs and flows or the roller coaster, depending on how things are going for you.
00:09:56
Speaker
That is life in general, but especially being a part of a startup.
00:10:01
Speaker
Definitely.
00:10:01
Speaker
I like the point of building a sure foundation, doing that, and then building the trust among your team, because there's actually a really large study that Google did on the number one thing that makes startups successful.
00:10:13
Speaker
And it is having this safety among your team.
00:10:16
Speaker
They called it psychological safety, but that really in essence is trust.
00:10:20
Speaker
The trust to be able to turn things over.
00:10:22
Speaker
You mentioned a lot of key points.
00:10:24
Speaker
And then also just being able to question, to be curious, to make mistakes, to be innovative, because that's how you foster growth and innovation.
00:10:31
Speaker
And I love that you brought both of those points up.
00:10:33
Speaker
And I can't be the only one who was trying to like jot down notes.
00:10:35
Speaker
You saw me reaching for my notebook and I was trying to be subtle about it, but... You have to be as comfortable failing together as you are succeeding together.
00:10:43
Speaker
The team that I was with early at degree, we say that we were in the trenches together and nothing formed a bond quite like being in those trenches.
00:10:52
Speaker
But being in the trenches doesn't mean things are going well.
00:10:57
Speaker
I mean, by its very nature, it means like you are going through difficult things together, but it also infers that you have each other's back, that you will do things to protect your teammates, to go out of the way for them.
00:11:14
Speaker
And that safety and failing is as important as how things go when you succeed.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
I can't be the only one who thinks that you have to be as comfortable failing together as succeeding together.
00:11:26
Speaker
Deserves to be on like a bumper sticker, on a magnet, on a sticker that we can give everybody for their Stanley Cup Tumblr.
00:11:32
Speaker
I'll be really let down if I don't see some of those in the community soon.
00:11:37
Speaker
Because DeGreed was venture backed, you've had ties to VCs since the beginning.
00:11:41
Speaker
So for years, was there anything or anyone that first got you excited about the world of venture capital?
00:11:47
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:11:48
Speaker
I'm going to try.
00:11:49
Speaker
Here it comes.
00:11:50
Speaker
You can tell just by the time it's going to be good.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:53
Speaker
So I joined DeGreed as first employee.
00:11:56
Speaker
While it is comical to say this now, I literally had no concept of venture capital as I joined DeGreed.
00:12:05
Speaker
I loved what the founders articulated when they said, here's the world that we're going to create through this business.
00:12:13
Speaker
And they called it a business.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I assumed if you are a business, you have revenue.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Exactly.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker
No, it's not as one does.
00:12:24
Speaker
It's not the world I grew up in.
00:12:26
Speaker
I was a software developer.
00:12:27
Speaker
I'd been working for agencies.
00:12:29
Speaker
We were doing work for established organizations and I worked for established organizations.
00:12:34
Speaker
I just, I had no concept of it.
00:12:36
Speaker
Again, lucky to have incredible teachers in those founders who were fine that I didn't know, maybe a little grateful because it gave me the bravery to join, but they taught me.
00:12:47
Speaker
And one of the first interactions I had was driving down the road.
00:12:54
Speaker
And this is before I actually joined DeGrade.
00:12:56
Speaker
I'm driving on I-15 south towards my home.
00:13:00
Speaker
And David Blake called me and he said, I just left Mike Leventhal's house.
00:13:06
Speaker
I'm going to make you an offer.
00:13:08
Speaker
Of course, what that meant was Mike Leventhal, one of the renowned angels here in the Mountain West had given him a check.
00:13:16
Speaker
And I was like, he had an inspiring conversation with Leventhal?
00:13:19
Speaker
Like what happened?
00:13:21
Speaker
But it was Leventhal's check that allowed Degreed to hire me.
00:13:26
Speaker
And so that was the first interaction, even though I wasn't yet on the up enough to understand it.
00:13:33
Speaker
And then time goes on.
00:13:35
Speaker
Degreed had many moments where we were out of cash.
00:13:40
Speaker
And my favorite early story was we had two weeks of runway left in the bank.
00:13:46
Speaker
No real prospects.
00:13:48
Speaker
We hadn't had enough traction to go to any of the institutional funds yet.
00:13:53
Speaker
Mark Cuban had said something in a blog months before and...
00:14:00
Speaker
Our founder, David Blake said, I'm just going to email him.
00:14:05
Speaker
And he found Mark Cuban's email, emailed him cold.
00:14:11
Speaker
And within two minutes, Mark responded and said, I'm in.
00:14:14
Speaker
What do you need?
00:14:15
Speaker
We were lucky through that process to bring Mark Cuban on as an angel, another company saving check.
00:14:24
Speaker
He then offered to do breakfast with us at the battery in San Francisco, which is a amazing place where connections happen.
00:14:32
Speaker
And we were Mark Cuban's guests at the battery for breakfast.
00:14:37
Speaker
And he came down, put his phone away.
00:14:41
Speaker
sat with us for four hours and just talked to us about our lives, about the business.
00:14:47
Speaker
And if there's anyone who could be conceited or aloof in a conversation, it's a billionaire, right?
00:14:53
Speaker
They don't know you much.
00:14:56
Speaker
And I learned just how to be present and how to give attention and why ego is a really bad thing.
00:15:05
Speaker
And even as you find success, the ego is not inevitable.
00:15:10
Speaker
that you can find success and be humble and continue to give.
00:15:15
Speaker
And you should do those things.
00:15:17
Speaker
So Mark Cuban was so influential to me.
00:15:21
Speaker
One, he was quick to respond.
00:15:23
Speaker
He gave us an answer within minutes because he knew we needed an answer within minutes.
00:15:28
Speaker
And then he invested his time, not just his money in helping us to grow.
00:15:34
Speaker
And he gave us advice at that breakfast that...
00:15:37
Speaker
changed the trajectory of the company.
00:15:41
Speaker
I am so grateful for his continued support.
00:15:44
Speaker
He still reads every single investor update.
00:15:47
Speaker
He'll reach out incredibly friendly when we see him, even when the jazz beat the Mavericks, he's still nice to us.
00:15:55
Speaker
And that's when you know someone's really nice.
00:15:57
Speaker
That's what you know, is when you beat their team and they're still kind.
00:16:02
Speaker
Signal Peak, Brandon Tidwell is our partner there, gave me front row tickets to the jazz game.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I brought this new guy that I had met to the jazz game with me.
00:16:13
Speaker
And wouldn't you believe we were playing the Mavericks?
00:16:17
Speaker
I brought this new guy I had dated front row seats at the jazz game.
00:16:22
Speaker
Mark's there.
00:16:23
Speaker
I text Mark.
00:16:24
Speaker
He comes over.
00:16:25
Speaker
He says, hi, and I will never live up to that moment ever.
00:16:32
Speaker
I know.
00:16:32
Speaker
Now I'm thinking of like, okay, all my dates, like early dates, like none of my dates following that looked like that, but I really, I really set the bar a little too high and I'm still trying to live up to it.
00:16:43
Speaker
But I mentioned Brandon Tidwell.
00:16:45
Speaker
That's another incredible moment for us at DeGreed.
00:16:49
Speaker
DeGreed is not an obvious investment early on.
00:16:53
Speaker
It took a lot of, for lack of a better word, bravery in the early investors that were willing to take a chance on us and make that bet.
00:17:03
Speaker
And it truly was a bet, more of a gamble than others that were already in their portfolio.
00:17:10
Speaker
So
Attracting Investors Without Revenue
00:17:11
Speaker
we were once again out of runway and had a couple very exciting clients in the pipeline, but we hadn't closed them yet.
00:17:21
Speaker
Brandon Tidwell saw talent, saw...
00:17:25
Speaker
I don't know exactly what he saw, but it made him believe in us in that moment.
00:17:29
Speaker
And he took a chance and everyone at Signal Peak invested in DeGreed in a moment where others wouldn't have.
00:17:36
Speaker
And it's one of my life goals that we ensure that DeGreed get to a point where...
00:17:41
Speaker
He is made good for that big bet.
00:17:45
Speaker
And he saw us through so many moments, you know, signal peak, not only was our series a, but they invested in every round after that as well.
00:17:53
Speaker
And often were the biggest check coming in, even in those later stages.
00:17:58
Speaker
The other one that I want to bring up as a major influence in me and actually who put the seed in my mind, the venture capital was a career path that I might someday want to walk down.
00:18:10
Speaker
And that's Deborah Quazzo.
00:18:12
Speaker
She is the general partner at GSB.
00:18:16
Speaker
a firm located in Chicago, but she is a renowned EdTech investor.
00:18:21
Speaker
She's actually the EdTech investor.
00:18:24
Speaker
So if you're around EdTech, even adjacent to it, Deborah Quazzo is someone that you would be lucky to have a meeting with.
00:18:31
Speaker
And she was one of the first checks in as an angel prior to creating her fund.
00:18:37
Speaker
And then GSB came on, I think in series B and in the round since then.
00:18:42
Speaker
And Debra has just been an incredible asset, someone to know, but also a mentor to me.
00:18:49
Speaker
So in a moment of what I believed bravery, I reached out to her just like Debra.
00:18:54
Speaker
I want to be you when I grow up.
00:18:57
Speaker
Will you help me?
00:18:59
Speaker
And she, again, emailed me back within seconds.
00:19:03
Speaker
I don't know how she does this, but if you email her within two minutes, that's the longest I've ever waited for an email back from Deborah.
00:19:11
Speaker
Like she just responds to you so quickly.
00:19:13
Speaker
I don't know how she does it.
00:19:14
Speaker
Honestly, I'm going to let you get back to Debra in just a second.
00:19:16
Speaker
But part of this podcast is really making me feel ashamed about my inbox because you've got Mark Cuban and you've got Debra and they're responding in seconds.
00:19:24
Speaker
And I'm just like, I'm just trying to get to inbox zero and I'm failing.
00:19:27
Speaker
They're so responsive.
00:19:29
Speaker
It's really impressive to me how they do it.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:31
Speaker
It's really impressive.
00:19:32
Speaker
But yeah, continue.
00:19:33
Speaker
I hope to emulate it one day.
00:19:34
Speaker
Totally.
00:19:35
Speaker
And then also too, what I'm learning from this discussion is that just cold email people, because that's what, you know, David Blake did that.
00:19:40
Speaker
You did that.
00:19:41
Speaker
I'm just like, okay.
00:19:43
Speaker
What I've learned is they're just people.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:45
Speaker
Just people checking their email, trying to get it to zero.
00:19:48
Speaker
They truly are giants.
00:19:50
Speaker
They're people who have lived exceptional lives and we would be lucky to emulate those lives, but they're people.
00:19:56
Speaker
who are available and often ready to pay it forward.
00:20:01
Speaker
And that's what is driving them as they have found success.
00:20:04
Speaker
And Debra, very much the case.
00:20:07
Speaker
She was an investment banker prior to going into venture capital in a time where women weren't all over the floor.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:19
Speaker
She is a powerhouse.
00:20:21
Speaker
She, in every board meeting, asks thoughtful questions while also communicating support, whether explicitly or not.
00:20:32
Speaker
And having her in the room made DeGreed a better company.
00:20:38
Speaker
Having her available to call when we needed her continues to make DeGreed a great company.
00:20:45
Speaker
She also fostered relationships outside of just the CEO, which board members are busy.
00:20:52
Speaker
But she cared about the broader team and formed those relationships where I have always felt safe speaking to Debra, telling her exactly what's going on in the business and where I believe we need help and where I need her support.
00:21:06
Speaker
And she does that not just for me, but when you go to her conference that's combined with ASU, it's called ASU GSB, you will hear people talk about how Debra changed the trajectory of their companies.
00:21:21
Speaker
And impact is a core principle of mine.
00:21:24
Speaker
So as I watched Debra operate, whether in the degree boardroom or at her conference or in one-on-one conversations with me,
00:21:34
Speaker
the impact that she has across the nation and truly the globe at this point just cannot be completely stated.
00:21:42
Speaker
It is incredible.
00:21:45
Speaker
And I wanted to emulate that in some way.
00:21:47
Speaker
So I would pick her brain about her career path, how she got there, what I could be doing, the choices that I had in front of me.
00:21:55
Speaker
And I was lucky to get on the venture path even sooner than I anticipated.
00:22:01
Speaker
And the first person I called was Debra.
00:22:04
Speaker
Oh, that must've been an amazing conversation.
00:22:07
Speaker
You said that she was able to ask questions while communicating support.
00:22:11
Speaker
And you can already tell that you do that and that you bring that to venture capital and what you do for companies.
00:22:17
Speaker
And there've already been so many of our CEOs who've said they've been mentored by you.
00:22:21
Speaker
So I think it's just a beautiful trajectory that you're already on.
00:22:25
Speaker
And I'm inspired by you.
00:22:26
Speaker
I want to be you when I grow up.
00:22:29
Speaker
Thank you.
00:22:30
Speaker
I want to jump back to one thing that you said, Kat, and you had said that DeGreed was not an obvious investment from the beginning.
00:22:37
Speaker
And I think so many founders and so many people, they face that.
00:22:41
Speaker
Their company is not an obvious investment.
00:22:43
Speaker
And so I would love to know what advice you have for them, any insights on how they can communicate the vision and what could be with their company so that investors will hop on.
00:22:54
Speaker
If you hear the name David Blake, quickly following that is visionary.
00:22:59
Speaker
There's a world that he believes should be created and he feels responsible to do work to create that world.
00:23:08
Speaker
That is very important to have that type of vision, to believe in the world that you are going to create and
00:23:15
Speaker
even though the path in which to create it might not yet
Authenticity in Investor Relations
00:23:19
Speaker
have revealed itself.
00:23:21
Speaker
And as we went out to fundraise, that is always how we led.
00:23:24
Speaker
We led with the vision.
00:23:26
Speaker
We led with the world as it should look and then presented what we were doing to create that world.
00:23:34
Speaker
But early on, it didn't have traction.
00:23:40
Speaker
The world was not yet built.
00:23:41
Speaker
The world was not yet there.
00:23:43
Speaker
It was just a glimmer in our eye that one day we could create it.
00:23:48
Speaker
At first, we thought this is a consumer company.
00:23:50
Speaker
And this was in the heyday of Twitter getting immense amounts of capital.
00:23:55
Speaker
Facebook was in the same boat.
00:23:57
Speaker
Like in 2012, we were in a very different world on expectations of consumer companies.
00:24:02
Speaker
If you could get to scale in terms of users, there was a belief that monetization would come after.
00:24:08
Speaker
And so we attempted that and we had around 250,000 users.
00:24:13
Speaker
So decent traction, but not enough to fundraise off of.
00:24:18
Speaker
So we pivoted and found traction in the enterprise space.
00:24:27
Speaker
But traction didn't mean money.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
And so my advice to founders is traction can be defined with how you're actually finding traction.
00:24:38
Speaker
It doesn't have to just mean revenue.
00:24:40
Speaker
As you're speaking to investors, progress is traction.
00:24:45
Speaker
Progress can be communicated.
00:24:48
Speaker
Exposing what you're going to do to create that world means citing the winds along the way that continue to make you believe that you're going to get there.
00:24:59
Speaker
And our traction at that time was we had been reaching out to HR leadership cold via LinkedIn, asking them... There we go with those cold emails again.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:09
Speaker
Cold emails.
00:25:11
Speaker
SDR training is the training that we all need.
00:25:13
Speaker
You just need to email, make that call.
00:25:15
Speaker
And so they would...
00:25:19
Speaker
respond to us and give us feedback, say what they liked, what they didn't.
00:25:24
Speaker
And we were having those calls based off of a prototype.
00:25:27
Speaker
And this is a prototype before the days of Envision or Figma.
00:25:31
Speaker
It was a clickable PDF that we were putting in front of those HR leaders and getting their feedback.
00:25:36
Speaker
So we documented the feedback.
00:25:38
Speaker
That was the traction on which we raised our series A.
00:25:44
Speaker
There were a lot of people that said, no, come back to us when you have revenue.
00:25:48
Speaker
And I don't fault them for that response.
00:25:50
Speaker
But there were also those that saw, well, once this thing does catch, it's going to be quite promising.
00:25:57
Speaker
We were having conversations with Fortune 50 HR leaders, the people who had the ability to control the budget, make the decision, that is who was responding.
00:26:07
Speaker
And
00:26:08
Speaker
I believe that is what Signal Peak and Brandon Tidwell caught on to.
00:26:13
Speaker
That if this does work, it's going to scale quite quickly.
00:26:17
Speaker
And that's exactly what happened.
00:26:19
Speaker
If we had only spoken to revenue and not those other proofs of traction...
00:26:25
Speaker
Signal Peak wouldn't have invested in this either.
00:26:29
Speaker
My advice to those who haven't yet found the revenue traction that they believe is necessary, take a look inside and see what proof points are still giving you and your team hope and speak to those.
00:26:42
Speaker
You mentioned that there were a lot of people who did say no, and you don't blame them.
00:26:46
Speaker
You don't fault them for that.
00:26:47
Speaker
So one, don't be discouraged by all the no's because you are going to find people, you're going to find investors who see the vision with you.
00:26:54
Speaker
And those are the investors you want anyway.
00:26:56
Speaker
You want the people who see the world that you are building and who are as excited about it.
00:27:01
Speaker
And I think we've spoken before on this podcast about the importance of choosing your investors carefully.
00:27:06
Speaker
So that really resonated with me when you said that.
00:27:08
Speaker
And I do...
00:27:09
Speaker
I think it's really important that you highlighted that there are other ways you can define success and find traction.
00:27:15
Speaker
And I think that's probably going to give a lot of our listeners some hope.
00:27:18
Speaker
And so I'm grateful that you pointed that out because so much of venture capital is not always obvious from the beginning.
00:27:25
Speaker
And just speaking to the reality of where you are, there seems to be this pressure.
00:27:30
Speaker
To hype it up, right?
00:27:33
Speaker
We're killing it.
00:27:34
Speaker
We're doing great.
00:27:35
Speaker
Everything's perfect.
00:27:36
Speaker
Here's the reality.
00:27:37
Speaker
Investors see everything.
00:27:39
Speaker
They know no one is killing it.
00:27:42
Speaker
It's always problems.
00:27:44
Speaker
Like there's people who are doing quite well, but the reality of their businesses are there's constraints, there's things they need to improve and tighten up.
00:27:52
Speaker
And so presenting a realistic picture, of course, with enthusiasm for the future,
00:27:58
Speaker
But a realistic picture of your business is not something that is going to scare away investors.
00:28:04
Speaker
That is something that they are trying to deduce in their conversation with you.
00:28:09
Speaker
Often we're trying to cut through the noise of pure enthusiasm to find reality.
00:28:14
Speaker
So bringing reality to the conversation should be encouraged.
00:28:18
Speaker
That was not natural to me from the beginning.
00:28:21
Speaker
I am...
00:28:23
Speaker
by nature and optimistic and also enthusiastic person.
00:28:27
Speaker
So my tendency was to say, here's all the good things.
00:28:30
Speaker
Look over here.
00:28:30
Speaker
Here's everything that's going well.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker
Like this is shiny.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:34
Speaker
And then what it actually did was raise suspicion of like, they can't be doing well.
00:28:38
Speaker
What is happening?
00:28:39
Speaker
There has to be some issues.
00:28:41
Speaker
So coming of course, with the reality of,
00:28:45
Speaker
and enthusiasm for the future, but just do it authentically.
00:28:48
Speaker
You don't have to put a face forward for VCs.
00:28:51
Speaker
We are people too.
00:28:53
Speaker
And just being your authentic self will actually save everyone a lot of time because that empowers you to find the right fit for who you are authentically as a leader, as a business.
00:29:05
Speaker
And
00:29:06
Speaker
Great investors engage the same way and it will save you a lot of time in what is a difficult process.
00:29:12
Speaker
Fundraising is hard.
00:29:13
Speaker
Fundraising is time consuming and you want to be focusing on your business.
00:29:17
Speaker
So I would encourage you to engage authentically because when we're authentic, it saves us energy.
Joining Kickstart and Utah's Venture Scene
00:29:24
Speaker
So I feel like what everyone should be taking from this is that you can just take a big, deep breath and then let out a really big sigh and forget putting on that front of everything is perfect.
00:29:34
Speaker
Like let that weight go.
00:29:36
Speaker
So really you're just a breath of fresh air, Kat, is what it's like.
00:29:40
Speaker
It's okay.
00:29:43
Speaker
We're just people.
00:29:44
Speaker
And that's another sticker.
00:29:45
Speaker
We're just people.
00:29:46
Speaker
We're just people.
00:29:47
Speaker
You're a very experienced, knowledgeable executive.
00:29:51
Speaker
And I imagine you had a variety of opportunities to you as you started to kind of think about maybe making a transition or maybe I want to do something.
00:29:57
Speaker
So why kickstart?
00:30:00
Speaker
I was on a good track to continue to grow at DeGreed and learn and see that thing through to whatever her exit trajectory is, which I believe to be a really exciting one.
00:30:11
Speaker
I had supported the board and I know they would have liked to see me stay there, continue to learn and grow into another role at some point in the future.
00:30:20
Speaker
But I also had this itch to get on the other side of the table and to have impact broader than one company.
00:30:27
Speaker
That's really the most rewarding part of being a leader is knowing that you are influencing and helping people in their day-to-day life.
00:30:36
Speaker
That was the hands-down best part of my job as a leader was just helping other people and supporting them through it.
00:30:43
Speaker
So venture, even as I talked to Debra and watched Debra execute, it became clear that a more effective way to scale that principle, that's a core value of mine of impact was through venture capital.
00:30:58
Speaker
I thought it would come to me someday in the future after a very successful exit, maybe one more role as a, you know, in a C-level.
00:31:07
Speaker
But Kurt here at Kickstart reached out to me.
00:31:11
Speaker
It was three years ago now, over three years ago for breakfast and talked to me about what Kickstart was up to, how they were thinking about growing the team and really got my mind running on, well, wait a minute.
00:31:26
Speaker
This might be a possibility for me soon.
00:31:29
Speaker
I might be able to make this jump sooner than later.
00:31:32
Speaker
And from a career standpoint, I
00:31:35
Speaker
I could have a career as an investor, not just a career as an executive turned investor.
00:31:41
Speaker
So that conversation with Kurt was a game changer for me.
00:31:45
Speaker
It wasn't yet the right time for me to jump over, but he has been an incredible mentor to me as I was a part of scaling degree.
00:31:52
Speaker
And he always gave me incredible advice.
00:31:55
Speaker
I could dig in on operational issues.
00:31:57
Speaker
I could dig in on interpersonal issues.
00:32:01
Speaker
And Kurt was always one text away.
00:32:03
Speaker
That meant a lot to me, but I also got to know the broader partnership and the broader team and the same value that Kurt brought to me as a mentor I found through my friendships with the other partners.
00:32:16
Speaker
And in a conversation one day with Gavin, he and I were at breakfast.
00:32:20
Speaker
I just told him where my head was in current state at DeGreed and he saw an opening.
00:32:24
Speaker
He's like, here we go.
00:32:26
Speaker
He's going to be ready to make a move.
00:32:28
Speaker
And he said, well, Kat...
00:32:31
Speaker
We're still looking to grow our team.
00:32:34
Speaker
We've just been waiting for the right person.
00:32:36
Speaker
Is now the time that you make the move into venture capital?
00:32:40
Speaker
There's so few moments in our lives where we have vivid memories that we can recall.
00:32:44
Speaker
That breakfast with Gavin is a vivid memory because he put that question to me.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I said, yes, actually, it is the time.
00:32:51
Speaker
And I felt it in every part of my being that now is the time for me to make the move.
00:32:57
Speaker
And as I spent time with the team and they really decided they wanted to bring me on as a partner to them, every interaction, it brought energy to me.
00:33:10
Speaker
It brought value to me.
00:33:12
Speaker
I walked away feeling like I had grown from that interaction.
00:33:16
Speaker
I talked about engaging authentically with investors.
00:33:20
Speaker
In every interaction I've had with any member of the Kickstart team, it is authentic.
00:33:26
Speaker
It is clear the team feels safe with one another, that they are actively working to make the founders they support feel safe and supported.
00:33:35
Speaker
And I couldn't have asked for a better environment to plug into.
00:33:40
Speaker
And I felt really honored that initially Kurt and then the broader partnership and Gavin gave that offer to me.
00:33:49
Speaker
Because I know I will become more of what makes me a great leader through interacting with the team at Kickstarter.
00:33:56
Speaker
So that's why I kickstart.
00:33:58
Speaker
Also, I did a lot of diligence on them externally.
00:34:02
Speaker
And every founder that I know that is part of the Kickstarter portfolio, they start out with, they are great.
00:34:11
Speaker
They are helpful.
00:34:12
Speaker
They are supportive.
00:34:13
Speaker
They're
00:34:14
Speaker
In board meetings, as they contribute, they're asking the right questions.
00:34:18
Speaker
They are not showboating in the boardroom.
00:34:22
Speaker
I call them when I have a problem.
00:34:25
Speaker
And as an executive, you can't ask for anything more from your investors.
00:34:29
Speaker
Your investors providing value versus being a check that you have to go through every quarter, that is a completely different experience.
00:34:39
Speaker
I think the importance there is you find a team that you feel safe with and that you resonate and that does match where you want to go, your core principles and those things that you are looking to build and to grow.
00:34:50
Speaker
You can't go wrong with any of the funds here in Utah.
00:34:53
Speaker
You truly can't.
00:34:54
Speaker
Each and every one of them, there's different perspectives.
00:34:58
Speaker
There are different partners.
00:35:00
Speaker
Like you can find a fit across the different funds and
00:35:04
Speaker
the wonderful part of working in venture capital is we all know each other.
00:35:08
Speaker
We all work together.
00:35:09
Speaker
We all collaborate together.
00:35:11
Speaker
And so of course we love kickstart, but we are huge fans of everyone else as well.
00:35:17
Speaker
And it's like dating.
00:35:18
Speaker
You find your fit.
00:35:19
Speaker
And your fit is going to be different for every founder.
00:35:22
Speaker
But you are engaging in what will become a 10-year, sometimes 10-year-plus relationship.
00:35:30
Speaker
And everyone that I have been lucky to come to know and learn from in the venture capital community here, they just want to help.
00:35:39
Speaker
They want to contribute.
00:35:41
Speaker
Finding the one that's right for you is very
The Role of Coaching in Career Growth
00:35:44
Speaker
important.
00:35:44
Speaker
Just like dating.
00:35:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:46
Speaker
Dating is such a good, oh man, dating.
00:35:48
Speaker
Like you talked about fundraising to be a painful process.
00:35:51
Speaker
It's way more fun than dating.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
Dating is a brutal process.
00:35:55
Speaker
So there's that, but yeah, I really do like how ecumenical everything is sort of in this.
00:36:02
Speaker
It's about building the ecosystem and I like that everyone's approaching it together.
00:36:06
Speaker
And you can tell that people are in this because they're passionate and because they care and they want to build and grow.
00:36:11
Speaker
So yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
It's easy to look at and be like, oh, they're just in it for the money.
00:36:14
Speaker
But it really is.
00:36:15
Speaker
It's about the community and the growth.
00:36:17
Speaker
And it's an exciting thing to be a part of.
00:36:19
Speaker
And there's easier ways to make money.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:22
Speaker
There's easier ways to make money.
00:36:23
Speaker
And faster too, right?
00:36:26
Speaker
Faster and easier ways to make money.
00:36:29
Speaker
So don't assume that that's why people are in it because they're all bright enough.
00:36:34
Speaker
They could make money in easier ways.
00:36:35
Speaker
Startups are not driving them.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:38
Speaker
Startups are not easy.
00:36:40
Speaker
And Kat, we have a question that we like to ask everybody on this podcast.
00:36:43
Speaker
So I'm going to ask you, and that is what is an effective practice you've implemented in your work or personal life that you think has had a great impact on your success?
00:36:53
Speaker
I've already mentioned him, but I have a coach and I've had a coach for five years now.
00:36:59
Speaker
I pay my coach to make me better.
00:37:02
Speaker
There are so few relationships where you can be completely selfish, but I'm paying for the time for me to be completely selfish.
00:37:11
Speaker
And he is invested in my success.
00:37:13
Speaker
He gives me a space and feedback that would be tough to hear from other people, but that I desperately need to hear if I'm going to improve and get better.
00:37:24
Speaker
So whether that person is your partner or a peer or your manager, just finding a space where you truly can be vulnerable and get feedback in that space is...
00:37:37
Speaker
is how I have been able to improve.
00:37:41
Speaker
We have coaches for athletes.
00:37:43
Speaker
We have coaches in so many realms of our lives.
00:37:46
Speaker
Why would we not have coaches in our careers?
00:37:49
Speaker
So find your coach in whatever form that makes sense to you.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's so true.
00:37:55
Speaker
You have piano teachers, you have athletic coaches, you have teachers in general in life to teach you how to do math and reading and writing.
00:38:02
Speaker
So yeah, a coach just makes sense.
00:38:04
Speaker
And we've had other sounds.
00:38:06
Speaker
Nobody knows what they're doing.
00:38:07
Speaker
No one has it perfect.
00:38:09
Speaker
Like the most successful CEOs, they have a coach and they're getting better all of the time because they have coach.
00:38:17
Speaker
You don't have to have it all figured out.
00:38:19
Speaker
You don't have to be perfect, but you should be working
Conclusion and Podcast Engagement
00:38:22
Speaker
toward it.
00:38:22
Speaker
You should be striving to get there and getting someone by your side that can help you get there, at least for me, has been very, very critical.
00:38:32
Speaker
You
00:38:32
Speaker
started out with approach things with wonder and curiosity and have that space to not be perfect.
00:38:37
Speaker
And then you brought it back with the coach.
00:38:39
Speaker
That was amazing.
00:38:40
Speaker
I think the theme too of this podcast is space, like space to grow and to learn and to be curious and to invest in the community and make sure you're building that for yourself.
00:38:49
Speaker
So thank you so much for all you brought today to the podcast.
00:38:52
Speaker
Thank you for all you do for the startup ecosystem in general.
00:38:56
Speaker
I'm thrilled.
00:38:57
Speaker
Again, I'm just, I'm so, so thrilled to have you as part of the team and to have had you on the show today.
00:39:03
Speaker
So thank you.
00:39:04
Speaker
Thank you.
00:39:04
Speaker
And I'm excited to be on the team.
00:39:06
Speaker
All right.
00:39:09
Speaker
Thanks everybody.
00:39:10
Speaker
And of course, thank you for listening as we dive deep into what it takes to create a perfect pitch.
00:39:16
Speaker
If you want to learn more about our investor, Kat Kennedy from Kickstart, we'll have a link to her profile and a longer bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:39:24
Speaker
You can listen to more episodes of Perfect Pitch wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:39:28
Speaker
And if you like what you're learning, leave us a reviewer rating.
00:39:31
Speaker
We'll be back next time with more insights from entrepreneurs and the investors who fund them.
00:39:35
Speaker
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.